Amy Bryant, Wild Child Counseling

03/12/2026

💛

03/07/2026

03/06/2026

03/04/2026

Yes! School refusal isn’t addressed by trying to change the child, it’s addressed by changing the school environment (at their school or by finding a new school).

03/03/2026

“Chronic stress, high rates of co-occurring conditions, and unhelpful school and clinical interventions are common among individuals living with pathological demand avoidance (PDA), according to the first-ever comprehensive survey exploring the lived experience of PDA.1 The survey found that failure to meet the needs of children and adults with PDA results in difficulties at school, at work, and in relationships, often leading to family breakdown and estrangement, school refusal, underemployment, and mental health struggles.”

Link in comments

02/28/2026

What does your kid LOVE to do? How can you support their way without trying to control it? How can you nurture relational safety so that you can also share helpful information…that they may or may not put into practice themselves? And how can you be OK with that?

I absolutely love these Truyols Music videos!

02/25/2026

“Way more harmful than a parent who is being permissive as a survival strategy or to offer their children a fear-free home, are adults who continue to believe that hitting children is an appropriate response to unwanted behaviors, whether in homes or schools.”

02/22/2026

A huge thanks to Marge Blanc for telling me about the work of Jaime Hoerricks, PhD. Jaime’s writing is extremely informative, providing insight into the lived experience of a Gestalt Language Processor. The quote below especially hit home…it eloquently and succinctly summarizes part of what Anna V OT(tag) and I are trying to teach in our Early Interoception Communication Course & why we need to validate and get curious about automatic forms of interoception communication!!!

Jaime says it way better: “Before thought, there is sensation. Interoception—the inner weather of the body. Sensory fields—the hum of light, fabric, air. Emotion as information rather than decoration. A gestalt system receives the world through skin and bone before it reaches language. No wonder behaviour is so often communication: the body speaks what words have not yet caught. A child leaves the room not to defy, but to regulate. An adult falls silent not to refuse, but to listen inward. If you read only the behaviour, you miss the message written underneath it.”

Read more from Jaime’s blog: https://autside.substack.com/p/so-you-think-differently-a-field?selection=c56a352c-ffd4-47dd-9c73-b4fa5dc0a174

Read more about our Early Interoception Communication Course for supporting preschoolers & non speaking clients of all ages: [https://www.kelly-mahler.com/product/aota-on-demand-interoception-early-communication/]

02/21/2026